DaveH
Striker
Was decent weather last night so I had my first stab at star trails. I'm usually doing things to stop the stars trailing:
I didn't quite have the camera timer working properly, which give 80 second gaps between frames, which is why they look grainy. The few 'fixed stars' are noise on the camera sensor.
To do it, I played around with settings to give the longest exposure I could without too much noise. 80 second exposure, f/5.6 aperture (the widest it will open) and ISO400. I then used a remote shutter release to keep taking pictures and went back in the house leaving it. This shutter release:
You also need a tripod.
I didn't do a delay between images to give the camera time to save, should have had a 10 second interval. What I should have done is half a dozen 'dark frames' at the end, where you take images in the same way with the lens cap on. This will give you only your fixed sensor noise. The two dotted lines going past are planes. With reduced air travel, now is a really good time to do this sort of thing!
There is a free application StarStax which will take the images and combine them into the trails. You can also load in your dark frames and it will try to subtract the hot pixels.
I'm pleased but hopefully my second attempt is better. General advice is to make the trails behind an interesting foreground image. The bit of my guttering in the corner of the shot does not really count as interesting.
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I didn't quite have the camera timer working properly, which give 80 second gaps between frames, which is why they look grainy. The few 'fixed stars' are noise on the camera sensor.
To do it, I played around with settings to give the longest exposure I could without too much noise. 80 second exposure, f/5.6 aperture (the widest it will open) and ISO400. I then used a remote shutter release to keep taking pictures and went back in the house leaving it. This shutter release:
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I didn't do a delay between images to give the camera time to save, should have had a 10 second interval. What I should have done is half a dozen 'dark frames' at the end, where you take images in the same way with the lens cap on. This will give you only your fixed sensor noise. The two dotted lines going past are planes. With reduced air travel, now is a really good time to do this sort of thing!
There is a free application StarStax which will take the images and combine them into the trails. You can also load in your dark frames and it will try to subtract the hot pixels.
I'm pleased but hopefully my second attempt is better. General advice is to make the trails behind an interesting foreground image. The bit of my guttering in the corner of the shot does not really count as interesting.